


The Wine Cellar

by thegirl



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Attempted Loss of Virginity, Canon Typical Violence, Episode: s03e02 Chaos Rising, F/M, Heather lives, Stiles Dies, WIP, different pov each chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-02 00:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirl/pseuds/thegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heather goes upstairs to get her dad's XXL condoms from the bathroom without her high heels on, because they recently moved house and Stiles doesn't know which bathroom or which draw, and her hips sway as she walks when she slips out of the wine cellar quietly trying not to get attention from party goers, who are, in fact, at her party which she is supposed to be hosting, but as it is, she is <i>trying</i> to get laid thank-you-very-much.</p><p>Stiles, on the other hand, is never seen alive again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Heather

Heather goes upstairs to get her dad's XXL condoms from the bathroom without her high heels on, because they recently moved house and Stiles doesn't know which bathroom or which draw, and her hips sway as she walks when she slips out of the wine cellar quietly trying not to get attention from party goers, who are, in fact, at her party which she is supposed to be hosting, but as it is, she is _trying_ to get laid thank-you-very-much.  
  
Stiles, on the other hand, is never seen alive again.  
  
...  
  
She looks for him but not for long, because Heather is in a bad fucking mood and is feeling decidedly unsexy and unhappy because her planned parter for the night, or at least a good twenty minutes of the night, had disappeared whilst she was gone, and she doesn't know what she did wrong.   
  
Danielle tells her that it's his loss, he is a fucking douchebag to not want to tap that (whilst giving Heather a very appreciative up and down which is another score up for Heather mental tally on Dani not being a hundred percent straight and maybe into Heather which is good news for Heather's one-day-soon lesbian experience she has been mentally planning for the past two years) and gets her drunk, because that's what friends do.  
  
When the night is not so young but the party is going strong, she chats to Stiles' friend (who is attractive, sure, but doesn't do it for her like Stiles has since she was eleven and _sigh_ , she fucked up big time) who says he doesn't have a ride home now cause he hasn't seen Stiles for hours now, and Heather unloads on him, all drunk and handsy on his very sober self.  
  
"Sorry," she says, as she pats his abs whilst smiling a bit gormlessly "Dani said when your heart gets broke your best friend gets you drunk."  
  
Scott (such a pretty name, she thought he said Scout the first time (and the second time) but she's drunk and it's her birthday and he has really nice abs and she is excused for not being perfect this one night of the year) laughs, and says Stiles said the exact same thing to him when he got his heart broken.  
  
He realises he said something wrong a second too late, but she's just giggling and handsy and pretending to be drunker than she is, because tonight she needs somebody to love her, okay?  
  
Just tonight, that's all she's asking, and she tries not to think of Stiles' sneaker he had abandoned in the cellar in his rush to get away from her.  
  
"Am I really that repulsive?" She cries and Scott (it might be Dani actually, she isn't sure, maybe it's her mom - no, that would be _horrible_ , the party is still going on, so much drunkenness and nudity and attempts to lose virginity) rubs circles between her shoulder blades until she falls asleep.  
  
...  
  
Heather has a hangover. She is a generally good person, but she stopped believing in all that rubbish about chastity and drinking sending you to hell a long time ago.  
  
Maybe this is hell.  
  
She can hear everything and everything is irritating and painful and annoying and did she mention painful?  
  
There is a constant banging that makes her want to literally disappear just so the ache in her head will recede.  
  
But up she stumbles, from a horizontal position on the couch to her vertical stagger within two seconds because you have to rip the band aid off quick in these situations.  
  
She thinks her brain just did a 180 inside of her skull.  
  
The knocking, banging, booming of what can only be the front door gets louder, the spaces of precious, sweet silence between the knocks becoming less with every passing second.  
  
"Coming!" She shouts and almost trips over a passed out guest or three.   
  
By some act of magic, she makes it to the door, and can't be bothered to look through the peeper hole thing (she's forgotten the word, oh god, what is the word for that thing that makes your path look like a fishbowl?) because she just wants to banging to stop, and pulls open her door with a whoosh of power.  
  
The banging stops.  
  
She has a headache.  
  
The Sheriff, as in Sheriff Stilinski, as in John Stilinski, as in the husband of the late Claudia Stilinski who was her mum's best friend since kindergarten, as in the man who bathed her and babysitted and helped potty train her and assisted in teaching her how to ride a bike, as in the father of that non-deflowering, dastardly Stiles Stilinski is standing outside her door, looking completely and utterly wrecked.  
  
"Hey Heather." He smiles tiredly but it turns out more like a grimace, and he looks like he's going to crack around the edges "I was just wondering - I don't want to bother you, but I was just wondering if you saw Stiles? At all?" He gulps in air greedily "it's just he didn't- he didn't come home last night, and he said he'd call, but he hasn't, and his GPS on his phone isn't working, and Scott says he hasn't seen him since nine last night and you were the last person to see him and I didn't know if you know-?"  
  
Heather hasn't seen John desperate for a long time. She had tried to forget that this strong, rock of a man had crumbled at his wife's death. It had been easier to pretend that the Stilinski family trio had adjusted to being a duo all but flawlessly, and Claudia had just gone away on a business trip.  
  
She shakes her head "No, um, I haven't seen him since about the same time as Scott, John, I'm really sorry-"  
  
She flounders.  
  
Heather has pockets stitched into the seams of her dress because she abhors the idea of dresses with no pockets, even if they're small, practically invisible ones.  
  
Inside one of these small, practically invisible pockets is one of her dad's XXL condoms and it's practically weightless but it weighs almost a thousand tons in the tense moments that follow her statement.  
  
Finally, the Sheriff sighs, and he looks like he's breathed out some of his soul "That's fine, Heather, that's absolutely fine. Nothing wrong with that. I just-"  
  
He looks at her searchingly.  
  
"Hoped."  
  
He walks away, hands stuffed in his pockets and when she closes the door (ow, has the latch always been that loud?) she feels like the worst person in the world.  
  
On her way to her room (she has to brave the squeaky stairs with a hangover which she is not eagerly anticipating) she passes a mirror and realises that Sheriff Stilinski had an entire conversation with her but never mentioned the black, mascara rivers of tear tracks going down her cheeks that dried in the night.  
  
...  
  
On Monday, Stiles didn't show up for school. On Tuesday he is officially missing and Heather is beginning to feel better about her vagina and perhaps it wasn't Stiles running away but instead dragged away.  
  
Then she imagines Stiles being dragged or hurt or dead and she feels so bad she goes to the toilets to make herself sick (she was just getting control of this bulimia thing too - oh well, another piece of progress washed down the drain - a bit of the sick gets in her hair and she sticks her whole head under the cold tap and doesn't give a shit about the condescending look Lydia Martin gives her _,_ bitch _, bitch **, bitch**_ **.** )  
  
(She remembers Stiles looked at the ginger with stars in his eyes, and god, she fucking hates him for doing this to her.)  
  
...  
  
Stiles is dead.

 

He was attached to a tree, his arms tied behind his back, so he was backwards hugging it, like a sacrifice.

 

(Like a _sacrifice)_

They say that it was strange - a threefold death, like he was just an interesting statistic, like he didn’t have a growth spurt at fourteen and didn’t know how to change school records and didn’t know how to drink whiskey by the gallon, like he didn’t know how to ride a bike with no hands for almost a full minute and like he didn’t bite his fingers raw when he was nervous, like he didn’t listen to punk music at the highest possible volume because apparently, that was the only way to listen to it.

 

His death was strange, just like a lot of people said he was like in life, an oddity bobbing along among the deaths to old age and car crashes and cancer.

 

The blow to the head fractured his skull. Incredibly strong, the murderer must be some kind of muscle man, the reporters ummed and ahhed. (Debbie Richmore said that her mother said it would’ve been excruciatingly painful, like his death was idle gossip to pull yourself up the popularity ladder by).

 

The sliced throat, that had bled a lot. It had coloured his clothes until he was in red and brown and black blood dyed (apparently they sliced through a mole and it was cancerous, _so maybe he just wasn’t supposed to live that long_ , the woman on the radio said who did horoscopes).

 

The garrotte round the neck, strangulation, which was probably the worst. Because the murderer just had to make sure that he couldn’t survive the encounter. The blow to the head was bad enough. The cut open throat had basically sealed the deal. But the garrotte? There was really no chance of coming back from that.

 

Last year, Stiles had talked to Heather about how you actually drowned. She couldn’t remember all of what he had said, she had just thought it was Stiles being Stiles, like with the male circumcision (as a female who liked dick and looked forward to seeing one one day soon, preferably that of the boy who was giving her flash cards to do with the history of his dick and basically every other male on the planet’s dick, it was really too much information and she had never thought she would find an area of TMI that involved male genitals - or genitals of any kind, really) but she remember him saying - oh god, what was it - “ _you’re holding on until you just can’t anymore, and you let the water in because you can’t do anything else - in that moment you’re completely out of options.”_

He had fallen silent after that for some time, she remembered, instead challenging her to a kung fu battle on Club Penguin.

 

She won.

 

Heather had never thought these would be the only memories she has left but they are, and she is alone, and Stiles is dead, and Heather feels like it’s her fault.

 

(She moves away after her parents think it isn’t good for her to be in the area anymore. She hears second hand that Sheriff Stilinski got shot in a robbery and didn’t survive. Privately she thinks he’s happy to be with Stiles, wherever they are. She goes to Princeton because she’s a clever little shit and she meets an equally clever little shit who plays WoW. They get married and have adorable identical babies. She the eldest girl Daniboi (Danielle raises her eyebrows and calls her a crazy bitch and Heather knows she loves it) and the younger girl Keziah because she felt that Stiles needed someone else to have a weird name other than him. They argue incessantly about who got the worse deal. Both of them shorten their names - Daniboi predictably to Dani and Keziah to Kezi. Whenever she goes back to Beacon Hills she puts flowers on Stiles’ grave and Claudia’s and John’s, and positions them just right so his real name is covered, because he would never forgive her if she didn’t. When she dies at a grand old age, she’s happy where she ends up.)

 


	2. Scott

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For so much of Scott’s life, Stiles had been everything, his only friend, his only comrade, the way he coped with not keeping up, his crutch, so much that Stiles had stopped being a separate person and had become an extension of Scott himself, and he knows that recently Stiles has been feeling like Scott’s been taking him for granted ever since werewolves, and Allison, and pack, and Scott could try to defend himself but it’s true, but only because the thought had never crossed his mind that there would ever be a world where they weren't the epic duo of Scott and Stiles, fuck, fuck, now Scott is scared, maybe Stiles wasn’t an extension of Scott, perhaps Scott was an extension of Stiles and has just been released into the broken world without an anchor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I got a review asking for more, more is what I give you. Again, please comment and give kudos if you think it deserves it :) There will now most likely be more updates so if you want to subscribe you can do that too.

 Heather smells like sadness, and it’s true that emotions can be drowned by alcohol to an extent, because she stinks of cheap booze and he can barely smell the lavender and ginger that is actually her scent, and even that is overpowered by the smell of sick yet not sickness, and he can’t think why, because people who have been recently sick have a stench of sick, and she obviously hasn’t been, but it’s still there and nobody can be sick enough times that it becomes a part of them-

Scott’s brain suddenly comes to life (he realises, realises, and he wishes he couldn’t smell anything and he could do something and help but no, this is not his story and she is not a fairytale princess and he is not her prince (Allison comes to mind and he makes he go away just as quick) and he couldn’t explain how he knows so he dares not say, it’s only tonight she’s learnt his name, maybe if Stiles were here, but Stiles isn’t here, he’ll tell Stiles at school once he’s done the required period of sulking and making Stiles beg for forgiveness and get him to do something about it, there’s too much hurt in the world and Scott can’t make it go away, he just can’t, but he wants to) and his inner monologue silences as the drunk girl cuddles under his arm, the coolness of her hand resting on his chest making him smile, because she doesn’t look seventeen she looks seven, but he won’t insult her and say so.

He’s pissed at Stiles, who he can tell isn’t in the house anymore, even though he had actually had to look for him by going from room to room instead of seeking out his scent, because there were too many people in too small of a space, because now he hasn’t got a lift and Heather is going to be miserable on her birthday (she cries on and off but Scott doesn’t think she’s actually noticed so he hasn’t said anything).

Until morning he’s rubbing Heather’s back and stroking her hair to get her to sleep and only scarpers when he hears the familiar rumble of the Sheriff’s cruiser (he still doesn’t know how the hell he differentiates vehicles, but he just can, like he knows the Jeep hasn’t moved from its position outside the Stilinski’s house since last night).

**...**

“Have you seen Stiles?” Lydia approaches him just before lunch, all scarlet and sharp, her scent singing how utterly pissed she is, and Scott gulps, because fuck, if she’s noticed something too then he can’t shrug it off.

“No, he was at the party last night then he wasn’t. I assumed that he left.” Scott says, and he knows he isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, because of moments like this when Lydia and others (but mainly Lydia and his teachers) look at him like he is the most dense individual they had ever had the displeasure of meeting (Stiles never looks at him like that, never has and never will).

“Sometimes McCall, I wonder how the hell you have survived this long.” she drops down onto their lunch table that they usually haunt, Allison having only left minutes before, and Isaac not sharing their lunch period. Stiles usually sits between them, and Scott finds the proximity with the flame haired siren a tad unnerving (she smells of burnt wood and blood and her heartbeat is louder than everyone else’s even though it is not elevated, she is simply more and Scott still can’t quite make the puzzle pieces fit together regarding her).

But she doesn’t look at him, and he’s thankful, as the panic hasn’t quite come yet, like he’s numb.

Because Stiles would’ve called, his jeep would’ve moved, the Sheriff wouldn’t have been approaching Heather’s house at seven am if everything were okay, if Stiles were okay.

(For so much of Scott’s life, Stiles had been everything, his only friend, his only comrade, the way he coped with not keeping up, his crutch, so that Stiles had stopped being a separate person and had become an extension of Scott himself, and he knows that recently Stiles has been feeling like Scott’s been taking him for granted ever since werewolves, and Allison, and pack, and Scott could try to defend himself but it’s true, but only because the thought had never crossed his mind that there would ever be a world where they weren’t the epic duo of Scott and Stiles, fuck, fuck, now Scott is scared, maybe Stiles wasn’t an extension of Scott, perhaps Scott was an extension of Stiles and has just been released into the broken world without an anchor).

**...**

Scott doesn’t want to get Derek involved, because Derek is not his alpha, and he probably wouldn’t help Scott with anything other than getting Scott off of his territory (and it is his territory, dammit, he’s the alpha and Scott... isn’t) so he purposefully searches for Stiles in a quiet fashion, Lydia using her gossip network (she actually has a network, Scott is officially scared shitless) to sniff out any word of Stiles, of which there is nothing except he stood Heather up at the party, but neither of them are popular enough for it to spread, Allison took the streets, searching for any signs of, well, anything, Isaac took the rooftops after being pledged to secrecy to not say anything to Derek, and Scott took the reserve.

There’s nothing but deer and woodland and the old Hale house, and the smell of fresh paint but Scott doesn’t dare look.

**...**

The Sheriff comes to their house, and he’s been on his feet all day, so Mom invites him in for some coffee. He comes in, but doesn’t drink any coffee.

He says that Stiles is officially missing as of 9pm that night. The amber alert will go out at the same time. He says it in monotone like he’s not really there.

Scott hears it all from under his pillow, in his room. He’s shaking and when he looks up he sees the world in blue and black and silver, and he roars into the night broken and hurting (before his mom pushes his head into a pillow to muffle the sound whilst putting shaking fingers through his hair in an attempt to calm him, but nothing works, Stiles’ scent is gone) and sixteen dogs in the neighbourhood go completely berserk.

**...**

At three in the morning on Wednesday, Scott can’t sleep, so he runs.

There’s no sign on the rooftops, nothing in the streets, so he goes to the reserve because that’s all that’s left, and then, then-

Pomegranate and salt.

He runs at what feels like a break neck speed, like he’s flying, he’s never run this fast and he never will again, he just needs to get to Stiles, get to Stiles, he needs to get to Stiles, he needs to find Stiles, he needs Stiles, Stiles, Stiles-

Rough, hard hands grab him from behind, and he can suddenly feel and smell things other than his own beating heart and Stiles, like the footsteps of the other, the scent of cotton and cream that belongs to Derek, wrapped in his usual layer of guilt and depression and annoyance, but the annoyance is gone and replaced by something that Scott wasn’t sure Derek, and it is Derek who is holding him back from Stiles, damn him, damn him, Stiles, Stiles.

Pity is coming out of Derek’s only pore, second only to sorrow.

“Derek-“ he growls, now fully in his beta form, desperation blinding him to the cause of Derek’s emotions ( _not the sharpest tool in the shed)._

“Scott, don’t, just-“ Derek loses his coherency _(“C’mon Derek, use your words.” Stiles had teased on countless occasions,_ Stiles, Stiles, Stiles) and just clenches his jaw but as Scott tries to snap at him his eyes are still soft, and Scott thinks he’s going to lose himself with all the pity and patience in the air.

He just needs Stiles, he just needs Stiles, pomegranates and salt, he needs to get to Stiles right now, right fucking now-

“Listen, Scott. Just listen, I’m so, so sorry, but you have to listen.” Derek growls, hands still holding him back, when had Derek become so impossibly strong so fast?

Listen, listen, what good was listening when there was nothing to hear-

There was nothing to hear.

That must be wrong, that can’t be right, that can’t be right, Scott can still smell him, pomegranates and salt, but there’s nothing to hear, there’s no-

There’s no heartbeat, no pulse.

The scent is already slightly sour at the edges.

Everything is pain, then, white and hot and burning, an ache unending, his very bones where shaking with his internalised agony, because there was no heartbeat, no heartbeat, no heartbeat-

Stiles was dead.

(Scott now knows that it indeed was that he was an extension of Stiles, and not the other way round, he doesn’t know how to live, how does he live, how does he live, how can he live, what does he do, this world was made for them two-)

**...**

(Scott doesn’t get out of bed, for what Melissa jokes with a shake in her voice feels like months. Apparently the Sheriff does something similar. Out of the two of them, the two most important people in Stiles’ life, Scott dies first. He covers himself in gasoline and Allison in the end isn’t enough to talk him out of it, and he isn’t even being influenced by the Darach that much, everything he says on his last night is from his own lips - no hope for him, no hope for Derek, no hope for Stiles. At his funeral everyone agreed that mentally he had been fine until Stiles died, then his soul broke.)


	3. Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek calls on Wednesday afternoon (Stiles is dead. Not that you care. It was a threefold death, looks like a ritual sacrifice.)
> 
> His voice is dull, and Peter thinks: poor little lamb, didn’t know the world would hurt you so, losing them, one at a time.
> 
> He didn’t have to call. Peter felt it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a request for Peter, so ask and you will receive. It's a bit shorter simply because I couldn't find much to say, Peter was always one of the more closed off characters, much harder to get a read on. I still hope you enjoyed, constructive criticism is welcomed.

Peter doesn’t really do much on Sunday.

As much as the imbeciles in his nephews pack (his, his, he’s the alpha, he’s just taking a rest from his duties, making them lower their guard) like to think that he spends every day plotting their demise and have intercourse with questionable methods, he mainly spends the day in front of the TV, watching reruns of useless reality shows.

He’d spent practically the whole week running about, trying to find ways of restoring himself to his former power, and now he felt like a rag doll.

He went to bed early. Nothing happened on Sunday, at least not to him.

**...**

Monday, everything seems a little louder, the buzz of Beacon Hills louder and busier, and at the same time, it felt like something was missing. He shook the feeling off. He didn’t go into Beacon Hills on the Monday, left it for another day. He couldn’t do anything if he wore himself out. Let the children wear themselves out, he wouldn’t run around for Derek when Derek was suited, bred to be a Beta, a child wearing his father’s (uncle’s) shoes and the adult indulging him.

Children did not order their superiors and Peter would not jump to accommodate his nephew’s desires.

(He may have gotten a phone call, and he may have ignored it, and the subsequent message full of Derek’s growling ( _Peter you need to get here right now, Isaac needs to find his memories of where Erica and Boyd are being held by the Alphas)_ , and decided he’d come to Derek to work on the curly haired brat’s memory the next day - it could wait. His nephew should really mind where he left his pack members and their memories, especially considering  and he didn’t even know that Isaac actually knew anything. Peter had a feeling he should stay in bed as it wasn’t a pressing concern.)

Annoyingly, Derek dared use the Alpha pull, compulsion for him to come to the attic, setting off Peter’s brain like nicotine used to. And when he got there, well, he heard what they said well enough.

Nobody liked him. (People used to like him, but he wasn’t that man anymore and wouldn’t put forth a charade for the benefit of others, there was nobody left in the world worthy - his wife, his darling Charlotte, and their pups, all stuck in her stomach when the fire came, all gone, burning, _burning, BURNING-_ )

He’s tempted to give Isaac memories of the fire, like he did to Scott, give him something to really be afraid of. But he doesn’t.

Given to a psychoanalyst, they might come up with that he cares deep down, he feels guilt of his poor treatment of Lydia and transfers it to the poor little abused boy, but really?

Too much work.

Peter never claimed to be hardworking.

He found them.

That’s interesting, but not interesting enough. He says what he sees then goes, because he isn’t wanted and doesn’t want to stay with them for too long.

(He wonders if Derek is so distracted by the two wolves’ absence he hasn’t noticed the smaller gap the human has left, but he won’t insult him and assume he has - serves the human - Stiles - right for objecting to the bite, somebody would’ve felt his absence if he were a wolf)

**...**

That night, Peter considers searching for the missing human.

Then, he goes to bed. It really isn’t his concern.

They wouldn’t like him any more than they do currently.

(In the middle of the night, for a second, he awakes to the scent of Stiles, _pomegranates and salt,_ so vivid like he’s right next to him, pain and confusion and hurt emanating from the aura)

(He opens his eyes and there’s nothing there)

(He searches the town for four hours until dawn when there’s no scent trail, nothing to say he was there in the first place)

**...**

(He definitely doesn’t do the same the next night, even with no scent to go on, definitely not)

**...**

Derek calls on Wednesday afternoon ( _Stiles is dead. Not that you care. It was a threefold death, looks like a ritual sacrifice.)_

His voice is dull, and Peter thinks: _poor little lamb, didn’t know the world would hurt you so, losing them, one at a time._

He didn’t have to call. Peter felt it too.

Thinks that the boy should’ve just accepted, then he could’ve been saved, the only halfway sensible, smart one dead when the idiots all broken on the inside remain.

Peter spends the rest of the day conditioning himself to smell like he doesn’t care.

He does the same when he hears of Erica, when he hears of Boyd, Isaac, Scott, Derek when there’s no pack for him to come back to and succumbs to the Alpha pack.

Peter could’ve done _better._

They wouldn’t have died under his watch, he would’ve kept them safe.

**...**

When they’re all gone, Cora strokes his hand and her voice sounds far away when she talks, like she’s beyond the veil too, it’s just a matter of time.

“Rest now, Uncle Peter.”

He does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, if you enjoyed, please review, subscribe, comment and if you really loved it, bookmark :)


	4. Boyd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m so sorry, Scott. We tried, we know how much he meant, there’s nothing you can do for him now, he’s in a better place-“
> 
>  
> 
> _“Do you believe that? Do you really believe that?” _His words are stifled and choked, and Boyd doesn’t want to hear this, he doesn’t even know what’s going on, maybe it’s Scott’s dad that nobody ever really talked about but Scott’s heart blipped every time the word dad was even used, but Boyd can’t help hearing, and neither can anyone else, he, Isaac and Cora are all still frozen, listening. Scott continues, inconsolable “How can you know that?”__
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> _Finally, Scott cries himself to sleep an hour later, still whimpering in his sleep as he goes._  
> _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, once I got started on this chapter I couldn't stop, I hope I did Boyd justice. This is longer than Peter's chapter, so perhaps I'm improving, eh?

For years, Boyd has been weak.

He wasn’t strong enough to save his sister from the lake, he wasn’t enough full stop for his mother after that, he didn’t have enough fight left in him when Erica still did, he’s never stood up for something that’s really, truly mattered to him, at least not when it counts.

It’s two in the morning and Cora is sitting across from him on the makeshift mattresses, he’s not entirely sure where exactly they are except that it’s safe, and both of their spines are bent like the world is on top of them.

Boyd thinks of the two kids in the woods - the ones he doesn’t remember but the wolf does, their faces twisted in his red vision, their screams echoing in his head.

They’re safe at home, but what if he had-

If Scott hadn’t been faster, it would’ve gone all too differently, and he was only there just in time, and only because he was already in the woods, for some reason. Boyd didn’t know why, but right now he felt like any more information would make his skull splinter.

“We didn’t hurt anyone.” Cora said, roughly, and he can’t bear to look at her, and she can’t bear to look at him, the what-ifs killing them both.

He shook his head, before resting his face in the palms of his hands, and speaking through them, so his words would’ve been muffled to a human, but not a werewolf “Are you sure?”

That’s all they say, all night long.

**...**

It’s Tuesday, they discover, when they surface from the haze, but late Tuesday, so it’ll soon be Wednesday. He knows he’s missed weeks, months, so he doesn’t have the courage to ask which Wednesday.

They don’t go to school, they have to become officially not missing, so Derek takes them to the police station. Sheriff Stilinski isn’t there, but instead a kindly woman called Tara, who has nerves pouring off of her, and it’s not because of either of them.

Something’s wrong, and he can’t quite figure it out.

When he goes back home, the house is quiet except for his mother’s breathing. He goes to find her, and doesn’t know what he’s expecting, really.

She looks basically the same, but everthing about her in whiter, paler, she’s lesser, and she’s talking into a dead cell phone, just babbling. She exclaims when he comes into the room “Now here’s my Vernon, here he is, I told you, didn’t I tell you that he’d be home, Marge?”

She’s crying but doesn’t lessen her grip on the dead cell and doesn’t move toward him, and with horrible clarity he realises she thinks she’s talking to Aunt Marge, Aunt Marge who died nine years ago.

“Mom?” he asks, quietly, but she won’t even meet his eyes.

**...**

He goes to Derek’s attic, because apparently Derek has an attic now instead of a husk of a house. It’s marginally better.

Derek isn’t home, but Isaac is, as well as Cora, who’s claiming a room. She doesn’t have anything to put in there, but she says quietly she prefers it that way, while she makes it neat and perfect and mops the floor simply because there’s a mop and she needs to do something.

She did that in the cell, every night, used the pads of her fingers to swipe up any dust there was, until they were sore but they never bled, not like a human’s would, and some nights she cried that she couldn’t just die.

Boyd doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want anyone else to die, he’s only just gotten his pack back, he wants to get to know them all, he wants to know everything and know their insides, know how to make them laugh and protect from things that would destroy them.

For years, Boyd hadn’t realised his role in the world, but he thinks he does now. There just isn’t a name for it, like colours and feelings didn’t smell until he became a werewolf. He has to become more, and then he’ll understand what he’s meant to be.

**...**

In the early hours of Wednesday, Derek returns, with Scott.

Scott is _howling,_ like a wounded animal, like his whole world has caved in on itself, and even though he thinks he isn’t, Scott is pack, and Boyd can feel it, like he hasn’t been able to feel anyone in so long, the sudden sensation almost makes his heart tear itself out of his chest.

By the time Derek gets to the attic, they’re all waiting by the door, because he hasn’t signalled they can approach. Scott is being half carried by Derek, half struggling against him, his eyes bright yellow and his fangs and claws out as well.

Derek nods, and they each quickly grab a limb and hold Scott down as he screams and whimpers and cries, and god, Boyd had almost forgotten what pure pain was, he had been so numb, for months and months.

Eventually, he doesn’t know how long it’s been, Scott quietens down, but only because his throat has become hoarse and he’s run out of tears long before. His body still convulses, even as Derek fully picks him up and carries him to Derek’s own bed, and tucks him in, talks quietly but they can all still hear-

“ _I’m so sorry, Scott. We tried, we know how much he meant, there’s nothing you can do for him now, he’s in a better place-“_

“Do you believe that? Do you really believe that?” His words are stifled and choked, and Boyd doesn’t want to hear this, he doesn’t even know what’s going on, maybe it’s Scott’s dad that nobody ever really talked about but Scott’s heart blipped every time the word dad was even used, but Boyd can’t help hearing, and neither can anyone else, he, Isaac and Cora are all still frozen, listening. Scott continues, inconsolable “How can you know that?”

Finally, Scott cries himself to sleep an hour later, still whimpering in his sleep as he goes.

**...**

Derek looks wrecked, but Boyd needs to know, Cora needs to know, and Isaac has the look that he thinks he knows but he isn’t sure, and Boyd needs to know from his Alpha, not his Beta, he needs to know something real, that he can trust and use as a crutch.

He had thought of the vault as hell, but no, this is hell, right here, it had seemed so solid for the longest moment, he had thought of it as home for the longest eternity captured in a second, but it’s falling apart already.

“What happened Derek?” he asks his Alpha, who looks up at him.

Boyd can’t remember the last time he’d ever seen anyone so tired.

“Stiles is dead.”

He feels his whole body jolt, and he can’t help it, he can’t, but really, Stiles? Boyd had always known that Stiles in a tight fix was the one to be protected, because he didn’t heal like they did, all human and breakable.

Boyd didn’t really know him at all, from before becoming a werewolf as the boy who talked to fast and made deals with everyone and anyone, and wore his heart on his sleeve and didn’t seem to care. Nothing could hurt him, not permanently, nothing could knock him.

From after the Bite, Stiles was the way of talking to Scott, the research guy who knew more about their species than they did. Boyd had steered clear, but he hadn’t meant to forever. Everything needed time, he had thought he could wait for a calmer time.

Nothing was ever still, was it?

The last memory Boyd has of Stiles was in the Argent’s basement, and Boyd remembers hearing his bones splinter, crack, his blood smelling not like metal or rust, but just like blood. Blood smells of blood, and Stiles’ blood almost choked him, there had been so much of it, and more bruises, cuts, splintering ribs.

Then, he had been tossed away, never saying a word about the plan, but smiling at he and Erica as he went, mouthing _we’ll get you out._

He didn’t get the chance.

Boyd stands stiff as a board, and goes to the room where Scott is still whimpering, his entire body covered in a thin layer of sweat.

**...**

On the Thursday, Boyd and Derek take Scott back home.

He can hear the birds and the bugs and the lawnmowers and the kids bothering their parents, but none of that drowns out Derek’s laboured breaths, Scott’s choked sobs, and from just down the road, he can hear the Sheriff crying.

Boyd remembers ‘bring your dad in’ day, and he remembers being jealous of Stiles who had grinned all over his face when his dad, the Sheriff came in. Boyd remembers being jealous, because Boyd didn’t have a dad.

Now the Sheriff didn’t have a son.

(He hadn’t known him, but Boyd’s heart burns for every could’ve-been that Stiles should’ve had, he remembers watching Scott and Stiles in the playground and wondering how you got friends like that, now he’ll never know, he supposes)

**...**

They don’t really see Scott, he fades away daily so it seems whenever he, Isaac and Cora catch even a glimpse of him in the halls. He doesn’t seem to eat, and unless he’s close by, Boyd can barely hear him breathe.

He drops lacrosse, much to Coach Finstock’s disdain, and Boyd thinks that it’s like watching a car crash, it’s all too predictable.

Boyd doesn’t see the end of Scott, but he had seen it coming. He hadn’t predicted his own death, but he should’ve really, shouldn’t he? If someone like Stiles can’t survive in this cutthroat world, he had a no hope.

(Just when the world goes dark at the edges, he thinks he sees a flash of red hair, but he can’t hear her, he knows it’s Lydia, but there’s no way he can move, better let the tide come in, wash him away, stop causing his mom unnecessary pain, let it take him away to a better place where there was no pain, no pain, Boyd wishes to be numb again. Then, the last thing he sees, just for a brief moment, is a shape distorted by the water, flickering behind her. He can’t warn her, but then it’s gone, and so is he.)

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked it, please leave kudos and comments, or if you loved bookmark, as well as requests for other POVs, as that's what I've done for the last couple of chapters :)


	5. Lydia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Scott, who found him, Derek says over the phone, and Lydia’s heart drops to her knees, because, nonononono, anyone but Scott, this would break Scott, and Scott would bring them all down with him.
> 
> She doesn’t say this, of course not.
> 
> “How is he?” is what she says.
> 
> “Half mad.” Derek replies.

Lydia isn't one of those girls. She just isn't, but she had masqueraded as their queen for so long, she knew them better than they know themselves.

Other girls, she wasn't as good with, she always had been better with boys, but she still knew the archetype that they were all trying to fill, the one she had been pretending to be as hard as the rest of them just looking like it was effortless on the surface for almost longer than she remembered, since her mother told her 'ladies get what they want'.

Heather wasn't a lady, and she didn't have what she wanted, which Lydia knew by the hate in her eyes whenever she looked at her, was to be a size zero and popular and have Stiles, by the way she looked at him.

Lydia considered, telling her that Lydia didn't have Stiles, Heather had Stiles more than Lydia ever had, Lydia had his interest but Heather had a firm seat in his heart even if it was only in a friendly way, and Lydia meant inside, not something the heart was set on, because if she had ever given him even a degree of interest, it would've been done and he wouldn't have known what to do.

Lydia was perfectly fine with being unattainable.

Along the way, she found a friend in him, and could actually feel him thinking of her as a friend back and less of a prize to be won.

Heather, it seemed, had not gotten the memo, going by the glares.

So Lydia was most definitely not at Heather's party on the Sunday. She was picking up a distraction and not thinking about the fact that Jackson hadn't called and sent one lousy text saying 'landed safely miss u' two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago.

Fuck him, she didn't need him, she didn't.

. . .

Stiles isn't in school, and at first she guesses he's either sick or skiving, but then-

"Did you hear? He totally ran off, dude! In his socks, no less, he was in that much of a hurry. Guess even Stilinski's gotta get some taste some time, I mean who wants to bang some anorexic-"

Lydia swallowed the bile in the back of her throat like it wasn't there.

Stiles wasn't in school all morning.

At lunch, she reluctantly approached Scott, despite knowing it was doubtful he would be more helpful than Prada, he was actually there and she wasn't, and she wasn't about to dismiss a primary witness.

"Have you seen Stiles?" straight to the point, she knew it would be useless to dance around the issue. Sometimes, vinegar got you more flies than honey.

“No, he was at the party last night then he wasn’t. I assumed that he left.” Scott replied, his eyebrows furrowing together.

“Sometimes McCall, I wonder how the hell you have survived this long.” but she really doesn't wonder, because the answer is Stiles, combined with dumb luck and Scott being likeable and kind in a way that she hadn't thought existed outside fairytales. She folds her legs before sitting down, tapping her heel harshly on the linoleum floor, keeping her eyes fixed on the table, as she knows the worst is occurring to Scott.

(Sometimes, you just need to watch your star go out)

. . .

Once Scott gets his shit together, he sends her to, in his words 'ask around'. She takes this as a personal challenge and revels in the flash of fear that shows on his face when she returns with no less than fourteen different statements about what happened.

In all of them, Stiles left whilst Heather went to the bathroom to get 'supplies', leaving two minutes for Stiles to exit, not through the front door but through a narrow window that you would need a step ladder to reach, and he shouldn't have gotten very far without his shoe, and he really should've returned home, which he obviously didn't do because his jeep was still stationary outside Heather's house and his scent wasn't fresh in his home.

In fact, the freshest scent that Scott could get was on Heather, who is still butthurt and not going near anybody even mildly associated with Stiles, which obviously included them all.

By the time Tuesday night rolls around and still no Stiles, and he’s officially declared missing, Lydia is still waiting for it to be a mistake and glares back at Heather for the first time, finally allowing the blonde to think she’s coming visible for all the wrong reasons, because there’s a monster and a half in Lydia yet, and purposefully looks at her sopping wet head like it was an actual fashion choice and Lydia hadn’t heard the gagging from inside her stall, they were never friends, and they never will be.

**. . .**

It’s Scott, who found him, Derek says over the phone, and Lydia’s heart drops to her knees, because, _nonononono,_ anyone but Scott, this would break Scott, and Scott would bring them all down with him.

She doesn’t say this, of course not.

“How is he?” is what she says.

“Half mad.” Derek replies.

They never were on the best of terms, and yeah, that’s becoming an obvious trend to Lydia, she doesn’t know anyone she needs to know well well enough, but she asks anyway.

“How are you?”

“I just lost a member of my pack, Lydia.”

And yeah, that really says it all, doesn’t it?

“He would’ve liked to have known you considered him pack.”

There, there it is, the hitch in Derek’s breath, the small whine that is obviously involuntary.

“Bit late now.”

But Lydia keeps at it, because Lydia won’t let herself feel the loss just yet, all curled up and stiff in bed in her silk nightgown that Jackson said did wonderful things to her boobs, because when she stops talking she starts thinking and feeling, and if it was the same for Stiles, and if that was his method too-

There she goes already, she hasn’t washed the mascara off her face yet, it’s not waterproof.

“How many people have you called?” her voice is small, even she can hear it, she never wanted to hear herself this way again ( _Death doesn’t happen to you Lydia,_ she can hear him in her head, and she just wants to reach out and smack him, because his death is happening to her, and it hurts, oh god, it fucking hurts).

A short silence before Derek answers “Not everybody.”

Lydia hears what he’s actually saying. _Enough._

She has to scrub her face in the morning red raw to get rid of the black stains of mascara, and that weekend her dad buys her more than usual because she ‘lost one of her little friends’ and she hit him round the head with her designer handbag, because he wasn’t a goddamn replaceable _toy._

**...**

The world around Lydia shatters, slow at first then all at once.

Stiles’ death was a domino, the first of a series of unfortunate events.

Erica died before Stiles, really, slaughtered by the Alpha Pack, but they only learnt of it after Stiles, when Boyd and Cora came back. They’re made of matchsticks, and she sneaks away from the pack, distancing herself whilst she still can, she meets Boyd one day on the sidelines of lacrosse practice, the first one all year that Scott hasn’t attended and he tells her he doesn’t blame her.

She’s really fucking glad somebody says it, because she blames herself.

They’re making no progress with the big bad, Deaton thinks it’s a Darach, but what would an evil druid want with Stiles and a lifeguard and an army brat (oh god the bodies the bodies the blood she drowns in their corpses at night, she’s stuffed in a coffin alongside them).

Allison’s dad moves across the state away from the Alpha Pack, under the guise that Allison is too depressed after Scott (and Boyd and Isaac and Derek) which yeah, is abut right, because Allison wasn’t enough to talk Scott out of it, when she blinks all Lydia can see sometimes are his blank, dead eyes.

Lydia wasn’t enough to save Boyd and they didn’t find Isaac until he smothered himself and Ethan cut himself in half, and she didn’t even like him that much, and can’t her parents just move her away too?

But they don’t love her that much, her daddy has his business and her mummy has her garden parties and hierarchy and oh god, oh god, Lydia is so fucking sick of finding bodies.

At the end of it all, it’s her and Cora, after Derek’s fall and Boyd’s drowning, Cora is as alone as she is. Peter went catatonic, full circle, the end of an era.

There’s no wolves in California.

They move to New York, and hunt down the flat that Laura and Derek shared because it feels right and Cora cries the whole night through, saying she can smell them there, her dead siblings who she never got to reconnect with.

Saying either of them improve would be a lie, but everyone else believes it for years, so why the fuck not? Let’s say they got better.

(Lydia finds Cora’s body at six am on a Sunday, hanging from the rafters where Derek and Laura hung up their coats, four years after Scott found Stiles’ body, and she has to call everyone, and Cora was as close to a hermit as a beta could be, until her voice goes hoarse, and wonders if she and Derek are so alike now, can she be excused for falling like him and just giving up, falling, f a l l i n g)

(She graduates with honours and blows her own brains out on the same night she receives her diploma, the girl she once was would never have considered it, but everything hurt and burned and the blood choked her every night and she just wanted to join her friends again, oh my friends my friends forgive me, that I live and you are gone)

(Jackson texts once more, saying he’s sorry for leaving and congratulations, and she never replies)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly intended to give Lydia a happy ending, but she just got away from me.  
> Please comment and leave kudos if you liked :)  
> I don't really like this chapter so if somebody could tell me what went wrong I would love you forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for killing Stiles. I had to. He's my favourite character but I needed to write this. He had to die.  
> Requests for character POVs are always taken into consideration :)


End file.
